Mayhem
From The Darkest Past (Bootleg)

The fame of Mayhem was built over the course of the '90s on the legends surrounding the group, back when the lineup was led by Euronymous and had a purpose in life.

The desire to release an album like this also stems from one of the many legends that have circulated around the group: but this time, rather than legend, we can talk about lies, and the situation got out of hand for the group, which saw, much to its dismay, the release of this useless and stupid bootleg.

"From The Darkest Past" indeed collects 7 of the 8 songs from "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas," played in the studio by the band during a regular rehearsal session in 1993: in plain words, it's a Rehearsal record.

But why did this album achieve such great success? Simple, because in these tracks, besides Euronymous and Hellhammer, our very own Varg Vikernes (Burzum) also plays, who at that time was a full-time member of Mayhem as a bassist (curious, considering in the contemporaneous Aske he refrains from playing this instrument to let Samoth from Emperor do it). The lineup is just three, since Euronymous had yet to find a singer worthy of replacing Dead, who had just passed away.

Such an album managed to stand out in the market of numerous band bootlegs solely for one reason: on the day following the murder of Mayhem's guitarist, his parents asked Hellhammer to re-record the bass lines of the murderer Vikernes so that his presence would be erased (it seems like a disturbing request from parents who have just lost a son and hated what he did, that is, playing metal music...); the drummer did as he was asked, out of respect for the parents, who, among other things, had essentially supported the rebellious-True-Norwegian-Black-Metal Euronymous over the years. But many did not believe it, rightly judging it unthinkable that a perpetually broke band, with a finished album that had taken years to gestate, could return to the studio to completely redo the recordings of one instrument (which Hellhammer probably didn't even know how to play...). This lie was gradually retracted by the group in recent years when Vikernes' name reappeared on the site, not only among the historic members but also among those who actively participated in the recordings.

But this album came out many years earlier, giving rise to a real frenzy, that of those who would have killed to hear Euronymous and Vikernes play together (and had been doing so for years without realizing it). The record is obscene for more than one reason. First of all, it's impossible to listen to an album of this type without the presence of a singer, the glue and soul of the songs, which seem to start and finish without a real purpose, without delivering any emotion. Secondly, the recording, although decent, only serves to ruin a record that even in its time would have benefited from a slightly cleaner production, to highlight with more force the compositional art of Mayhem, which sometimes tends to get lost due to a scandalous mixing.

But the real sore point of this record lies precisely in the reason that drove "many" to seek it out: Vikernes' bass lines are still embryonic, and have little of those rolling and melodic melodies that will indelibly mark Mayhem's masterpiece; a musician who is not technical but instinctive and creative, Vikernes of "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" often holds entire sections of the record together, with his bass sometimes "solo" and sometimes at the service of the team, as in the title track or "Life Eternal." The lines of this bootleg, on the other hand, are always in the background, banal, then penalized by a sparse and irritating sound, very "plong-plong."

A useless record. (like too much now with the Mayhem moniker on the cover)